


Anything but the Shadows

by FrostedFox



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M, Kid Loki, Kid Sif
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostedFox/pseuds/FrostedFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was getting late, and Loki was most definitely lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything but the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Plato's Allegory of the Cave

It was getting late, and Loki was most definitely lost. 

He was not about to admit it to his current companion--who happened to be a very powerful, albeit young, warrior that hated him as it was, and may or may not be in love with his brother--but he didn’t plan on wandering around aimlessly all night. 

It was a definite dilemma.

“How much longer, Loki?” Sif asked, annoyed. 

“Not much farther now,” he lied, because he couldn’t help it. Part of him was going to tell her the situation, but she had asked and his instinct told him to lie. 

Luckily--or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it--Sif was on to him. 

“You have no idea, do you?” Loki didn’t respond. Silence was enough of an answer for her. “You’ve gotten us lost! Oh, the All-Father is  _so_ hearing about this!”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Well it’s not like  _you_ know the way back.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be leading!” She huffed, then stopped in her tracks. She folded her arms across her chest, unmoving. Loki stopped as well, suppressing yet another roll of his eyes. 

“That’s not going to help anything, you know.”

“It might,” she said, dramatic like the 16-year-old girl she was. Loki, who was 15, sighed loudly and sat on the ground. Waiting. 

Ten minutes passed in silence before Sif spoke again, “I guess we should try to find a path or something.”

Loki was drawing runes in the dirt with his finger. “You don’t want to continue to stand there and feel sorry for yourself?”

Sif hit him in the side of the head so hard that his head rocked back a little. He had known it was coming. What he wasn’t expecting was the second impact. 

“The first was for what you said, the second for getting us lost,” she clarified, before stalking off in the direction they had come from. 

Loki jumped to his feet to follow. Sif was taller than him and walked faster, and he wasn’t about to get lost in the forest  _alone_ . 

A few more moments passed in silence, apart from the occasional noise of protest from Loki as a branch swung back from where Sif passed it to hit him in the face. 

“I wish Thor was here,” Sif said. 

“I don’t! He would be even more useless than y-” he stopped short, “than a rather useless... Midgardian!” He finished triumphantly. 

“Nice save. I’m too tired to hit you for that,” Sif said.

“I’m too tired to continue walking,” Loki replied. The lack of response from Sif implied that she, too, was not prepared to travel all night. 

Not much later, large boulders started to appear. They were at least three hours walking distance away from the city. They both realized it. 

Another definite dilemma. Loki blamed Sif for these misfortunes. 

“I guess we better find somewhere to sleep,” Sif said. They were both thinking it. 

“Anxious to spend the night with me, are you?”

Apparently Sif wasn’t so tired that she couldn’t kick Loki in the shin, hard. 

Sif found a place in the boulders that served as a rather nice shelter. Spacious for the two teenagers who planned to stay there. 

“You go in first,” Loki said. He wasn’t a big fan of dark spaces. Sif sighed loudly and went in, turned around, and raised her arms in a gesture that indicated all was well in a mildly passive-aggressive way. 

“Loki, Son of Odin! Prince of Asgard: Afraid to walk into a dark cave! They make comments about a woman warrior and yet they bow to you? I don’t get it. You’re nothing like your brother.”

“If one more person tells me that I may start to think I’m adopted,” Loki said before progressing slowly into the cave, picking up sticks from the ground on his way in. 

Sif chuckled a bit at the expression on Loki’s face as the light became lesser around him. When Loki reached the same depths as Sif, he dropped the sticks on the ground, arranging them into a pyramid at his feet. 

“What are you doing?” Sif asked skeptically. She trusted Loki as one would trust a very annoying younger cousin, but she wasn’t a large believer in his capabilities in the field of magic. 

Neither was Loki, if he was honest, but he rarely was. 

Loki stood up, looking over his work and dramatically raising his left hand. He squinted his eyes at the kindling and snapped; a flame rising up in the center of the sticks. 

He fought to hold in a cheer but failed. Sif raised an eyebrow at him, but she was impressed. He could tell.

“I’ll go get more sustainable firewood,” she said, false annoyance tinting her voice. Loki didn’t buy it but was happy to watch her go out into the dark for the wood. 

As expected, Sif returned with a great deal of firewood. Probably too much, but seeing as though Loki didn’t want to even imagine sleeping in the pitch dark cave, he was grateful. 

Sif always managed to accomplish any physical task to beyond perfection. It was attractive to every teenaged male in Asgard, except perhaps Loki. He watched her return, arms loaded with firewood, and watched her dump the wood into a corner. 

She sat down beside him, bringing a substantial log with her to put in the fire. There was an awkward silence. 

“How long have you been able to do-” she motioned to the fire. 

“Controlling the basic elements is not as hard as it might seem,” he said.

“So you can spontaneously produce water?” Sif asked. In response, Loki cupped his hands and squinted at them as he had the fire. Slowly water filled them. He spread his fingers and let it splash to the ground, grinning. 

“Wind?” Sif asked, then shuddered. Loki didn’t miss it. 

“I don’t think you want me to try,” he said, watching Sif scoot closer to the fire. 

“It’s cold in here,” she stated. “Why aren’t you cold?”

“I don’t get cold.”

“Everyone gets cold,” she shot back. 

“I’m tough,” he said. Sif snorted in response. “Snorting isn’t very lady-like, you know.”

“Shut up.” 

“The Lady Sif, everyone!” Loki announced to no one, just as his father announced warriors before a duel at any festival.

“Oh, you want to duel, do you?” 

“It’s only a fair fight if magic is allowed!”

“What are you going to do? Drench me with water?”

“Light you on fire,” Loki said. Sif’s face became dark. “I wouldn’t, though,” Loki added. He didn’t mean to scare her. 

“I would beat you into the ground before you had the chance, scrawny,” she said, and Loki relaxed a bit. Things returning to normal. Sif shuddered again. 

“You’re really cold, aren’t you?” Loki said. He felt a tinge of--that couldn’t be guilt, could it? “Here,” he said, removing the cape he wore and handing it to her. 

She almost didn’t take it out of pride, but she gave in at the last moment. “Thanks,” she muttered. Loki smiled at the thought of Sif thanking him for anything. He wondered if he was dreaming.  

“You owe me a favour,” he said. 

“You got us lost. I owe you nothing.”

“I thought hitting me in the head was my punishment!”

“I don’t forgive that easily. If I were you I would drop it. Unless you want another knock to the head?” Loki gave no response. 

Thor had told him when he was little that he shouldn’t hit the girls, no matter if they called him names in classes or stole his helmet. 

If he had told Sif about that, she would have scoffed and probably asked for him to try to hit her. She would be right, of course. Loki would never match her in a physical battle. 

She looked harmless now, wrapped in Loki’s cape by the fire. 

Sif looked up to find Loki staring at her. “What?”

“Nothing, sorry,” Loki said, averting his gaze. It was Sif’s turn to feel as if she were in a dream. Loki apologizing? Maybe even too surreal for a dream. 

“I wonder what Thor’s doing?” Sif said. Loki made a strange noise in the back of his throat. 

“Can we  _please_ talk about something other than that oaf?”

Sif looked at him briefly before continuing, “Probably looking for us.”

“Probably,” Loki said, trying to end the conversation. 

“Do you think he’s worried?”

“Yes, no, maybe. Sure, why not?” Loki rambled. 

Then there was silence. The fire crackled loudly. 

“Loki?”

“What?”

“Are you worried?”

Silence. 

“A little.”

“Me too.”

And then the silence lasted longer than any before, but it was more comfortable than the previous ones. Eventually, Sif fell asleep under the cape, and Loki watched her for a while before drifting off himself. 

-

Everything was normal in the morning. 

Except, maybe, for the part where Loki and Sif woke up together in a cave made out of a cluster of boulders, both damp with morning dew and smelling of smoke from the fire. It must have gone out overnight, but smoke still rose from the embers. 

Loki woke up slowly. Sif was already up, poking the embers with a stick. 

“I don’t think I can get it going again,” she said. Loki was not awake enough to know what she was talking about. 

He made a gurgling noise and sat up, drawing his hand across his face. “What?”

“The fire. I think it needs-” she snapped her fingers, an indication of what she wanted.

“Oh,” Loki caught on, squinting at the fire and snapping. A large flame rose up and Sif jumped back. 

“LOKI!” 

“Sorry! I’m rather new at this,” he said, trying to force the fire down manually. 

Once it had settled down, Loki and Sif sat across from each other, drying off in the heat of the flames. 

“What’s the plan?” Sif asked, and Loki looked at her incredulously. 

“Don’t ask me! Why are you asking me?”

“Who else would I ask?”

“Yourself, perhaps.”

“I don’t know! Wait here until Thor finds us?”

“He won’t very well find us if we’re crouched in a cave.”

“This is why I asked you,” Sif huffed. “What should we do, then?”

“Maybe we could transport the fire outside. See if the smoke gets any attention. Or we could try to make our way back.”

“We’re in the boulders,” Sif said thoughtfully. “We’re not far from the kingdom, but I have no idea which direction to walk in. I suppose we should remain here.”

Loki nodded, standing up and picking up some of the firewood. Sif followed Loki outside. He scrambled up a boulder, gaining height, before dropping the wood in a new pile. 

It took a few minutes for the new fire to be established, but when it was done, the two of them felt they had accomplished something great. 

Then they got bored. 

“So, Thor, huh?” Loki asked, desperate enough for conversation that he resorted to this. 

“What happened to not wanting to talk about that ‘oaf'?” Sif asked. Loki shrugged. 

“Bored. So, do you love him?”

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

“I’m taking that as a maybe,” he said, studying her. “You don’t even know, do you?”

“Loki,” Sif warned. 

“You don’t! Is it because you don’t think he likes you? He does, you know.” Sif smiled despite herself, Loki continued, “You don’t believe in love?”

“What are you talking about?” Sif asked harshly. 

“-Or you want someone who will treat you as superior. As a warrior of Asgard,” Loki finished.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but-”

“Mischief and lies,” he interrupted. It had come to him one day. What’s more powerful than deceit, and more fun than mischief? “It’s sort of my thing.”

“Of course it is,” she said. “And what is my ‘thing’?”

“War,” Loki laughed. “You’re always trying to start something or other.”

“I am not!” But Sif kind of liked the idea of it. The sound of it. “And Thor’s?”

“Idiocy, easily,” Loki replied, still smiling. “It’s probably something you have to decide for yourself, in all truthfulness.” 

Sif nodded, but ‘The Goddess of War’ was running through her mind and she was really liking the sound of that. 

Just then, a bird of prey called out across the boulders and the sound of it bounced around, sending chills down the Asgardians’ spines. Loki moved closer to Sif without thinking.

“They’re probably looking for us right now. They must be close,” Loki said, more to reassure himself then Sif. 

Sif moved closer to Loki. “They must be,” she affirmed. 

The call rang out again, this time met with the call of another. 

“Mates,” Loki said, looking at the empty skies. “Must be.”

Sif looked up as well, but saw nothing. “How lonely it would be to live out here,” she said, neck straining from looking around. Loki nodded, still staring at the skies. Sif rested her head on his shoulder, unthinking. It felt nice to put her head on something relatively soft. 

Loki didn’t say anything, which surprised both of them. A few minutes past before Loki, too, felt the strain of watching the sky. He rested his head on top of Sif’s. 

She pulled his cape onto both of them, though Loki did not need the warmth. It made them both feel safer. 

Less alone in this lonely forest.

They sat like that for some time, before Loki ran his hand through the ends of Sif’s hair. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

“For what, now?”

“For this,” he held up a piece of her hair, “For what I did.”

“What, when we were six?”

“You were seven,” he corrected. 

“I like it better dark,” she said, remembering the night Loki snuck into her room to cut off her long, golden hair. 

He had, after all, gone to a lot of trouble to get the hair enchanted so that she could have it back. It just hadn’t worked out how either of them had thought it would. Instead of going back as if nothing had happened, it had turned a dark and permanent black. 

“I do, too,” he said, quietly. “Amora has blonde hair.”

“Don’t talk to me about Amora,” Sif said. 

“She doesn’t  _really_ love Thor,” Loki supplied helpfully, “she just acts as if she does.”

“I suppose you would know,” she said, the sarcasm dripping from her voice. 

“I would, actually,” Loki said. Neither of them had moved from their position. “He’s my brother, and she is--” he stopped. 

“Loki!” Sif exclaimed, lifting her head from his shoulder. “You don’t  _like_ Amora, do you?”

“She’s a very powerful sorceress,” Loki defended, “I admire her for it. Don’t you dare tell anyone.”

Sif was quiet for a moment, “Don’t tell anyone that I don’t believe in love,” she whispered, and rested her head on Loki’s shoulder again. 

“If we were a pair, we’d be gods of uncomfortable silences,” Sif said, then. Loki chuckled and Sif felt it through his shoulder. 

“It’s not all that uncomfortable,” Loki said, because someone had to. 

The thought alone was frightening. Sif looked up at Loki. He looked back. 

“Stay still,” Sif said, and leaned in to kiss him.

Loki did as he was told, which was new. Shocked silent after Sif had withdrawn. 

Loki couldn’t make eye contact with the warrior in front of him, so he looked at the sky again. Sif looked up as well. 

A few moments later, the booming voice of Thor was heard from the forest. Sif stood up quickly. Loki realized she was still wearing his cape. 

He didn’t say anything. 

When Thor emerged from the trees, his face broke into a wide grin. As he approached, Loki could see him take in the sight of the cave, and Sif wearing Loki’s green cape. His smile almost faltered, but he caught himself. 

He pulled Sif into an embrace and then tugged at the cape. It was a question. 

“Oh! I was just- I got cold in the night. Loki got us lost,” she accused. 

Loki played the only part he knew, that of the miscreant, the villain. 

“It was I, brother, who lost track of ... well, our track.”

“Of course it was! You never could so much as find your way around the palace, let alone the woods of Asgard!” Thor laughed, pulling his brother into an embrace and effectively squishing the air from his lungs. 

“Father! I’ve found them both! Alive and well!” He called back.

Loki looked over at Sif, who was glaring at him and balling up his cape to throw at him. She knew that he purposefully hadn’t reminded her of it. 

Loki smiled back, mouthing ‘mischief and lies,’ and raising his eyebrows. Sif threw the cape at him and simply mouthed back ‘war.’

For the entirety of the walk back, Sif walked alongside Thor. Loki tried to contain his thoughts to Amora, but found it difficult. He wondered if Sif had found what she was looking for in the kiss, or if she was having as hard a time as he was, trying to focus on Thor. 

He was still wondering if this had all been a dream.

 

**Author's Note:**

> "And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets." -Plato's Allegory of the Cave


End file.
